Wheel of Wellness

For our Uptown Good Food and Bronx Park East Farmer’s Markets held on Saturday, July 26th, and Sunday, July 27th, our Kids Club had another great activity run by our summer interns, Tiffaney Batista, Brad Lynch, and Zarya Gutierrez. Kids could participate in an educational and fun painting activity that allowed them to paint their healthy plates consisting of the necessary foods, such as fruits, vegetables, proteins, and so on, that they need to stay healthy. Some children painted plates decorated with various fruits and vegetables that they enjoy eating, and some painted their plates based on the My Plate template, which shows children which food groups are most important for proper nutrition.

Supplies: 

• Paper plates 
• Construction paper (if you don’t have plates to paint on, you can use this instead)
• Compostable trays (to put your paint on)
• Paint brushes of various sizes
• Paint (acrylic or watercolor) 
• Water (to clean brushes)
• Paper towels (to clean spills or wipe away paint)

Step-by-Step Instructions:
Start by picking the paint you want to use. If you’re using paint in a tube, you need to squeeze some out. For our activity, we used compostable trays to hold our paint; however, we also used paper, which worked just as well. Children can paint on either paper plates or construction paper. Using paper, you can take some black paint and paint a black circle to represent your plate. We used colors like blue, green, purple, red, orange, and more. Any colors you need to paint your favorite fruits and vegetables can be used. You can use a cup of water to rinse your brushes and dry off your brushes when you need to; you can use paper towels. What you paint is totally up to you however it should be paintings of what makes a healthy plate so think of your favorite fruits and vegetables, some kids painted their plates based on the My Plate format, which represents a healthy plate based on five important food groups which are fruits (red), grains (brown), vegetables (green), protein (purple), and to the side of the plate, dairy (blue).